A-bombs and AI, apples and oranges

Everyone's talking about Christopher Nolan's latest movie, Oppenheimer, so we thought we may as well jump in. The film is about the life of J Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist spearheading the 1940s Manhattan Project that was R&D into the making of the first atomic weapons. About the movie, we shall stay mum as we missed the first day, any show yesterday. But we will pontificate about one aspect that Oppenheimer - both man and movie - dealt(s) with: the double-edged sword of science and technology. And the tendency to exaggerate S&T's dangers by comparing one genuinely dangerous scientific product (atom bomb) with another that isn't quite lethal (AI).

Nolan himself has weighed in on the 'debate' by saying that there are 'very strong parallels' between Oppenheimer, the physicist, and AI experts like OpenAI human boss Sam Altman who are calling for the technology's development to be reined in and guard-railed. The worry about both bomb and AI gains more potency coming as it did/does from their creators. True, AI has very big handles on it marked 'Please Misuse Me!' But to put the tool that may or may not have written this column, will eat up human jobs, can be used to spread misinformation on the same footing as the two 'tools' that vapourised large chunks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? P-lease. Nolan has to sell his movie. You, dear reader, do not.